


The Term Paper With A Plan

by SarahRad



Series: Just Your Average Crime Fighting Family [3]
Category: Marvel (Movies)
Genre: Domestic Avengers, Gen, M/M, Superfamily, Superhusbands, star spangled man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-04
Updated: 2012-06-04
Packaged: 2017-11-06 19:20:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/422298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SarahRad/pseuds/SarahRad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter needs to pick a topic to write a WWII term paper on.  Tony tries to convince him to pick the obvious choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Term Paper With A Plan

Tony walked into the kitchen to find Peter curled up on a chair, scribbling some notes out of a textbook, his homework spread all over the table. This was unusual, because Peter almost never had homework. He was a quick learner and often got his work done during class hours.

“What you working on, bud?” Tony asked as he rummaged in the fridge for something to eat.

“History term paper.” Peter replied, before sticking his pencil between his teeth to flip furiously through the textbook.

“A term paper? What’s the topic?”

“World War II, broadly speaking. We have to choose a topic within those parameters, and I’m trying to figure out what to do.”

“Really? You’re having a hard time with that?” Tony asked, a little taken aback. He thought it would be obvious.

“I don’t want to take the easy route, Dad.” Peter said, a bit of a warning in his voice.

“I wouldn’t call it the easy route. I would call it utilizing your resources.”

“It feels like cheating.”

“It’s not cheating. There’s no rules saying you can’t use primary sources is there?”

“Well, no.” Peter admitted slowly.

“See? Do it, you’ll ace the paper.”

“Do I do propaganda, or narrow it down further to just Captain America?” Peter asked.

“That, my boy, is up to you.” Tony said with a grin, clapping his hand on Peter’s shoulder.

**

“Pop? Could I ask you something?” Peter asked, sticking his head into Steve’s office.

“Sure thing, Peter. Pull up a chair.” Steve said, patting the seat next to him.

“I have to write a term paper for my History class, and I was hoping you could help me.” Peter asked, a little hesitantly. He still felt like he was abusing his resources.

“I’ll do my best. What’s your topic?” Steve asked.

“Well, it’s… you.” Peter said slowly, as if he was planting a bomb. He cringed, not wanting to meet Steve’s eye unless he was mad.

“Peter, look at me.” Steve said, not unkindly. Peter looked up slowly and saw that Steve was smiling. “Why are you nervous?”

“I don’t know, I guess I thought you’d be mad, or uncomfortable, or not want to talk about it or something. And also, it feels a bit like cheating. Nobody else has a resource like this.”

“You’re being ridiculous. Now tell me, what about me are you writing on?”

“Well I was going to do propaganda as a whole, but Dad convinced me to go whole hog and just focus on Captain America.”

“Hmm. Well both of those are good topics. Personally, I think you’d be better off to go with just Captain America, though.” Steve said with a grin. Peter couldn’t help but smile back.

“Thanks Pop.” Peter said, before leaving the office.

**

Tony found Peter on the couch in the living room, reading a book.

“Buddy, you have got to see this!” Tony said, sitting on the couch next to him and opening up his laptop. Within seconds he had a video queued up. Peter leaned forward, curious.

The video began and Peter’s jaw hit the floor.

There was his Pop, surrounded by scantily clad chorus girls, encouraging him to buy war bonds and punching out Hitler, all set to an obnoxiously catchy song.

When the video ended Peter just stared at the blank computer screen for a second.

“What was that!?ˆ” He asked eventually.

“That, my boy, was the first piece for the bibliography of your term paper.” Tony said with a self-satisfied smirk.

“That was just, uh, wow.” Peter said.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy that.” Tony said. He pressed play again and began to sing along with the song.

“Who’s strong and brave here to save the American way? Who vows to fight like a man for what’s right night and day?”

“What are you doing?”

Tony and Peter whipped their heads around. Steve was standing in the doorway watching Tony’s performance.

“I was just giving Peter a valuable history lesson.” Tony said matter-of-factly, before continuing to sing.

“Who will campaign door to door for America, carry the flag shore to shore for America -“

“Oh my god. You can turn that off anytime.” Steve said.

“- From Hoboken to Spokane -“

“Pop, make it stop.” Peter said, looking a little terrified as Tony pranced around the room towards Steve.

“- The Star Spangled Man with a plaaaaan!” Tony sang with a flourish.

Steve just huffed out a laugh, shaking his head as he left the room, Tony still singing along to the video. Peter quickly followed, although that didn’t stop Tony from singing the song all around the living room.

“That was terrifying.” Peter said as he followed Steve out of the room.

“What’s truly terrifying is that was my life for a whole year. There’s more films than just that one.” Steve said offhandedly, rummaging for a drink in the fridge.

“Really? I didn’t think you’d be into show business.”

“Unfortunately, show business is a necessary part of being a national symbol. I’m surprised you hadn’t already figured that out.”

“I guess I never really thought about it.” Peter admitted.

“I know you want to get involved with S.H.I.E.L.D., so maybe you should.”

Anything Peter was about to say was cut off by Tony.

“I’m performing a masterpiece in here and there’s nobody to see it!” Tony called from the living room.

“You’ve got nothing on those chorus girls, trust me, Tony.” Steve called back, causing Peter to snort in laughter.

“Well really, do you want to see your Dad doing high kicks? I didn’t think so.” Steve said to Peter’s appalled expression.

“Yeah I was good without that visual, thanks.” Peter said dryly, walking back out to the living room with Steve to see Tony actually trying to do high kicks. He couldn’t help but bury his face in his hands, laughing while Steve tried to stop him with cries of “Tony, you’re going to hurt yourself!”

“You know, nobody believes me when I tell them how messed up my family is.” Peter said as he sat down in front of the laptop, flipping through a few of the other vintage Captain America news reels. He pressed play while Tony still taunted Steve with the song and some sassy choreography, keeping just out of Steve’s reach. 

Peter ignored his parents to pay attention to the video. Captain America was shown leading an attack on an enemy base, but it was very cheesily done, with clear cardboard backdrops.

“Pop, these are just terrible.” Peter called over his shoulder. Steve and Tony had progressed from playful taunts to some serious roughhousing, and Peter knew he should head them off before they broke something.

“Which one are you watching?” Steve called.

“I don’t know. You’re storming a cardboard beach.”

“Oh you’re watching the wrong videos then.” Steve abandoned his wrestle with Tony and came to show Peter what he was talking about.

“See, you’re watching the pre-Italy videos, as I like to call them. They were blatant propaganda, only meant to sell war bonds. Once I actually got overseas, there were news reels showing me actually attacking enemy bases, not just cardboard huts.” Steve scrolled through the list of videos and found one of the videos he was talking about.

They spent the rest of the afternoon like that on the couch watching videos while Steve told Peter stories from the war. Tony left them for his workshop, whistling Star Spangled Man as he left. It wasn’t a song that was going to be easily forgotten in their household.

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a pair of gif sets I saw on Tumblr. [One](http://theappleppielifestyle.tumblr.com/post/24181739131/yeah-come-on-dad-in-which-tony-gets-peter-to) and [two](http://theappleppielifestyle.tumblr.com/post/24086422502/but-i-was-just-people-were-throwing-money).


End file.
